Eliot Spitzer, then New York State Attorney General, speaks with his wife, Silda, before being introduced at a rally in Prospect Point park in Niagara Falls, N.Y., in this May 29, 2006 file photo. The... (Associated Press)

(Newser)
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Eliot Spitzer is going up in flames, but Americans are wondering why his wife has to go with him:

The Los Angeles Times talks to angry people on the street, including one divorcee who insists, “She should’ve said, ‘This is your fight. ... You stand there and get yourself out of it.’” But professors disagree, saying sticking on your politician husband’s arm is simply “one last spousal duty.”

Dina McGreevey, ex-wife of “gay American” and ex-New Jersey Gov. James McGreevey, insists “there’s no protocol for the spouse or partner stuck in the klieg lights”—and then lays into Team Spitzer: “What are the advisers trying to salvage?…Let him face the cameras on his own.”

The press reaction has proved a battle of the sexes, Alessandra Stanley writes in the New York Times, with male commentators talking up a “victimless crime.” Alan Dershowitz even barked, “Big deal, married man goes to prostitute.” Meanwhile, women on TV laid in to the governor, focusing not on how long Spitzer would remain in office, but on whether Silda should have supported her cheating husband.